


Tea Party

by executrix



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-07
Updated: 2011-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scenes from "Shindig," sort of. And the crowd goes Wilde!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea Party

1.  
Jayne belched. Cucumbers always gave him gas. Then he rinsed the empty plate in the sink, rearranged the rest of the plates and strolled out of the galley.

Half an hour later, Mal, tired of fussing with his hair, came in to fuss with the table. He checked the count…yup, there was one less than there should have been, and only fifteen minutes till Sir Warwick Harrow came on board. Sure, the plan had been to hook up with him at the party the following night, but Mal thought there was far too much that could go wrong that way. This way, cut him out from the herd, maybe capture a few pictures on the monitor in case it went south and he tried to deny that he’d hired them on…Work before play, as Jayne’s Poppa used to say. But once the work was done, little Kaylee could use a little fun with people her own age for a change.

Mal got on the loudspeaker. “Everyone in here!”

“You got a problem?” Jayne asked. “I heard that when a Cap’n loses his marbles, first thing that happens is he starts to think someone’s stealin’ his strawberries. Well, they’re right there, ain’t they?”

“It’s the cucumbers I’m worried about. Inara said she was going to make a plate of those dainty little sandwiches. Harrow’ll go for stuff like that, make him think we’re the real deal.”

Wash easily interpreted the look Jayne gave him: {{Sure, Zoe’d kill me right smart after I did you. But you’d still be dead, little man.}}

“Sorry, Mal, I went to the market like you said, but there weren’t any cucumbers.”

“No cucumbers!” Mal said.

“No, sir. Even offered to pay for ‘em and everything.”

2.  
Regan Tam often compared her family’s plight to a Greek tragedy, stretching over generations. To have lost one child would be bad enough. Losing three was enough to expose her to comment on the platform.

3.  
“Jayne is a girl’s name, isn’t it?”

“No, sir, Mr. Sir Harrow. It’s a, whaddayoucall, an achronism. Junction of Amberbridge and Yountville Nucular Engines. That’s where they found me, when I was a baby.”

“And are the rest of your crew associated with any of the larger termini?” Harrow asked.

“Not as I know of,” Mal said.

“Quaint!” Wash said, busying himself with a toasted teacake.

4.  
“Where’s Jayne?” Mal asked, the following afternoon. He knew where the doctor was--he’d heard Simon’s voice coming out of River’s room.

“He’s in town,” Book said. “Visiting a sick friend. That’s surprising, isn’t it? Well, I suppose there’s good in every man,” he said earnestly, folding the prayerbook over his index finger.

“If you think that about Jayne, you don’t know jack,” Mal said. “Fella’s name wouldn’t be Bunbury, would it?”

“Yes, I think that was it. It was an unusual name, so it stuck in my memory,” Book said.

“Uh-huh. Same sick friend he’s had last three moons and two planets. Sure does get around a lot for an invalid.”   
5.  
{{A dilemma would be nice}} Simon thought, lifting the spoon high and watching the sugar crystals hit the surface of his citron presse. {{Because that would be only two lemmas…}} and for a moment he thought about a full herd of bright-yellow lemmings speeding over a cliff.

Being downplanet made him nervous, but that made a change from feeling stifled cooped up on the ship. He thought that he could risk a couple of hours away this afternoon. He was trying something new with River. He had sedated her lightly and started a two-hour tape of his voice urging her to calm down and enter a meditative state. If that worked, he could try post-hypnotic suggestion during the next crisis.

Pretty soon, he’d pass for the ‘Verse’s premier halfwit if he kept on pretending not to notice Kaylee. There was nothing at all about her that he disliked, but he didn’t know if that went far enough. The odds weren’t very good that they’d get through a year with both of them not-dead-or-worse. But if they did, what if he fell in love and Kaylee didn’t?

Or, much more plausibly, the converse. She had a look in her eye that he’d often seen among the nursing staff. Sometimes it led to a stand-up quickie in the supply closet (nobody ever screwed in the On-Call Room; it wasn’t just the lack of privacy or the instability of the cots, it was that nobody could stay awake long enough once they got there). And that, in turn, often led to tears or silent huffs or resignations. The Head of Service said that if one more nurse quit, she was going to take Simon to the vet’s and get him fixed.

Inara reminded him of the life he had left behind, which both was and wasn’t an attraction. With his bank accounts crashed, he was in no position to become a client of hers. He knew that Companions frequently devoted a portion of their earnings to maintaining a lover, but he hadn’t lost nearly enough of his pride yet to be willing to accept that role--even if Inara would consider him worth the price.

He was deep in thought when a thin girl with frizzy hair and a bad-tempered face sat down on the table. Even though she was light, so was the table--it was one of those small round café tables with a pierced metal top--and it rocked as she crooned “Hel-lo, salty goodness.!”

Simon didn’t know what the reciprocal formula was, and he hadn’t brought his encyclopedia along (and in any case it would have been rude to look it up) so he merely nodded and said Hello.

“My name’s Banning,” the girl said. She crossed her legs, which didn’t put much of her legs on show because her skirt was long and full, but she dangled her shoe until it dangled precariously beneath her toe cleavage. She spent the rest of the brief conversation flicking it up and down like a slow yo-yo. “But my really good friends call me No Holds Barred. I hope you’re going to be a very good friend.”

“Well, I don’t know you, do I?”

“My governess will be out at the copy shop for another hour, making copies of another one of her crappy novels,” Banning said. “That should be plenty of time for you to find out everything you need to know.”

“Let’s stop by the drug store,” Simon suggested. “Errr…the chemist’s shop? Whatever you call that here.” Simon told himself that he would be able to sort out the whole Kaylee-Inara-both-neither situation a lot better when he was in a more…objective frame of mind.

“We don’t gotta,” Banning said. She flicked open her clutch purse. Inside were condoms in all the colors of the protein.

It seemed like a good time to complete the formal introduction. There was, however, something about a large price on one’s head to tamp down impulses of candor. “My name is…..Jayne,” Simon said. “Jayne Cobb.”

6.  
“We’ll be up late tonight at that hoe-down,” Mal said. “Why’n’t you take a little nap, get rested up?”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” Kaylee said. “I’m too excited!”

“Well, don’t spend all your time lookin’ at that dress of yours. If your eyes don’t fall out on stalks, the furbelows will, out of bein’ stared at. Tell you what, though. If you got all that energy to burn, go into town and see if you can’t find Jayne. And when you do, tell him I got bad news for him.”

“Oh, no!” Kaylee said. “Is it Petey? Did the Damp Lung do for him?”

“Naw,” Mal said. “Tell him it’s Bunbury. Bit into the wrong apple. Got quite exploded.”

7.  
“Hi, there,” came Kaylee’s voice, floating up the stairs. Simon, accustomed to waking up in a moment when there was an emergency, sprang bolt upright. “I’m from Away, y’know, and I was wondering if you had any news about a man from my crew.”

Tianna! Simon thought. {{If Kaylee finds out, she’ll be so hurt…}} He could visualize her bitter grief, as she stood by his open grave, shoveling in the dirt. Possibly before he was entirely dead.

Simon leaped into his pants, gathered up the neat packet of clothes on the floor, and with his shoes in his hand, climbed out the French window. He took a moment on the balcony to put the rest of his clothes back on, then climbed down the drainpipe.

The next-door neighbor’s butler, who had seen it all before, barely noticed.

8.  
Meanwhile, in the parlor, Kaylee gazed around her in wonderment. {{Wish I could take some of this foofaraw home to Mama}} Kaylee thought. {{She’d love it. That, or it’d give her a good laugh.}}

“So, you got any news of my shipmate?”

“Well, let’s see,” Banning said, ringing the bell to summon a servant. She wanted a little light refreshment after her recent exertions. “Handsome….”

{{I suppose someone could think that}} Kaylee thought, with surprise. {{Travel is so broadening. Find out the strange way other folks live.}} “Never thought of him that way, but, yeah, maybe.”

“Suave, sophisticated….”

“Hell, no,” Kaylee said.

{{Detestable girl}} Banning thought. {{But I require tea.}} She sat down and beckoned to her unwelcome guest to do the same.

Kaylee took a sip of tea and chomped down on the three tea sandwiches stacked in her hand.

“Language!” Banning said.

“I believe in calling a spade a spade,” Kaylee said.

“I am glad to say that I have never seen the agricultural implement to which you refer,” Banning said. “Our ways of life have obviously been very different.”

“Anyhow. All I want to know is what happened to that fella I was talking about.”

“I’ll have one of the servants see if Jayne is still asleep, or if he has recovered himself sufficiently.”

“Jayne went upstairs with you?”

“That is the name of the one that I laid and you mislaid, isn’t it? Unless you have two of them.”

“I said I didn’t want no sugar, and you filled my cup up with lumps of sugar. I asked for bread and butter, but you give me cake. You know what?” Kaylee said. “I can read tea leaves.” She dumped the remaining fluid contents of her cup into Banning’s lap. “You’re gonna marry a big fat dimwit and have a passel of dimwit rugrats, cause Bitch don’t breed true but Dimwit does.” And with that, she swept out of the room.

“Oh, you’re back, Miss Prism,” Banning said, as a weather-beaten elderly woman entered the room just after the door had ceased to vibrate. Banning hoped that the little pretty, whatever his name was, had had enough sense to skedaddle when the skedaddling was good. But then again, if he hadn’t, there’d be fireworks, and that was always fun.

“Despite my express instructions, I see by the cake crumbs on the page that you have read the chapter on the Fall of the Rupee,” the revolting female concerned with education said repressively.

“Yeah. What a sell. You said it was “sensational,” but it was just the same old go-se.”

A minute later, Jayne, his head down, left the saloon, his lucky bag still in his hand. He would never bet that, even when he’d lost his last chip. He was sure that that huin-dan must have been dealing from the bottom of the deck. But he knew that Mal’d have his hide if he busted the place up, what with their trying to keep a low profile and so forth. So he just headed back to the ship. It was near dinnertime anyway.

9\.   
“Do me a favor, Preacher?: Mal asked. “I send Kaylee to find Jayne, but now they’re both gone. Feel like I dropped a spoon down the sink, tried to fish it out with a fork, and now I dropped that too. At least I don’t have to worry about that damned boy, he’s got the sense to stay put where he’s supposed to be.”

Driving the mule up to the main street, Book scanned the few people out walking. To his great relief, he saw Kaylee, looking upset for some reason but obviously unharmed and headed back toward the ship. He was going to flag her down and offer her a ride when he spotted Jayne a hundred yards or so behind her.

But all thoughts of his crewmates fled from his head. In front of one of the grand houses, someone he had never expected to see again was watering a row of vibrant purple flowers with a tiny watering can. His lost beloved. Oh, he had so much to say to her, after all the years apart.

10.  
Sir Warwick left Inara’s shuttle. He yawned, then the grin replaced itself. He checked his watch. Mal had invited him to share their evening meal. It was an uncivilized early hour, but it’d do to fill the time before the reception tonight anyway.

Simon, his hair still a little damp and ruffled, left the vaporshower and looked up and down the corridor for signs of Kaylee. The coast was clear. It would probably be a good idea to fix himself a sandwich and absent himself at dinner. He thought about going to Kaylee’s cabin later to apologize, but it might only upset her and spoil her enjoyment of the soiree. Then again, he also flinched away at the possibility that in fact she wouldn’t know he had anything to apologize for until he dropped himself right in it by telling her.

His path crossed Sir Warwick’s. The magnate snapped his fingers. “Say, your name’s Tam, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Simon said warily.

“Oh, yeah, now I know why that name was familiar. Heard about it clear over here, must have been twenty years ago or more. Terrible thing.”

“Yes,” Simon said, still more warily. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to compound it by disagreeing with Harrow.

11.  
The day before, it had been Mal’s turn to do the dishes after the tea party. He’d given the kitchen a wide berth ever since. Anyway, it was the Shepherd’s turn to cook supper. But when Mal arrived at the dining area, instead of plates and glasses on the table, there was a weeping woman’s head and torso resting on the table. Book patted her back pastorally.

“May I ask what position she holds in your household?” Sir Warwick asked.

“I am a celibate,” Book said severely. “Oh, yes, some Shepherds do marry, but mine is a stricter path….although she was the one woman who might have made me compromise my vocation, back when I had a parish on Osiris.”

“Oh, dear….oh, my dear….” Patience said, raising her head.

Mal bellowed, “Get her the hell out of here!” but no one paid any attention to him.

“I had very nearly dared to hope, back before That Terrible Day, but…”

“Patience, dear, where is that baby?” Book asked her gently.

“Oh….dear Canon Book….I do not know. On the morning of the day you mention, a day that is for ever branded on my memory, I prepared as usual to take the baby out in its perambulator. I also had with me a somewhat old, capacious hand-bag in which I had intended to place the manuscript of a work of fiction that I had written during my few unoccupied hours. In a moment of mental abstraction, for which I can never forgive myself, I deposited the manuscript in the bassinette, and placed the baby in the handbag.”

“You had a poke big enough to put a baby in?” Jayne asked. “I’d’a thought you’d need something more like a carpetbag for that.” He gestured with his for emphasis.

“Wherever did you get that bag? Why, here is the injury it received in a transporter accident in younger and happier days. Here is the stain on the lining caused by the explosion of a temperance beverage. The bag is undoubtedly mine. I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me. It has been a great inconvenience without it all these years.”

“Just outta curiosity, what station did you leave it at?” Sir Warwick asked.

“Yountville,” she said.

“Huh?” Jayne said.

“Huh.” Mal said.

“Mama!” Jayne said, embracing her.

She swatted at his shoulder and murmured, “Mr. Cobb, I am unmarried!”

“Awww!” Jayne said. “Well, what the hell, number of times someone called me a bastard, might as well get somethin’ for it. Who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered? Why should there be one law for men, and another for women? Mother, I forgive you….and, hey, didn’t you shoot Mal once?”

“Twice!” she said. “Wacky fun!”

Mal decked her with a right uppercut.

With one impulse, everyone else hopped over Patience and ran to the bridge.

Book went to the Cortex terminal and accessed The Osirian Social Register. “Tam, Gabriel….married Regan Svioboda…three children….”

Simon’s mouth dropped open. River shrugged.

“Simon, M.D., born 2538….River. born 2545…eldest son, born 2534, missing, presumed dead…”

“Yeah, I got that they lost me, but what was his name when I was a baby?” Jayne growled.

“Can’t you guess?” River asked.

Book shrugged apologetically. “It may have been a reaction to grief, or perhaps preserving a cherished family name, it was often done in times of high infant mortality…”

Mal guffawed. “You mean?”

Book nodded. “Simon.”

“Awww, crap,” Jayne said.

“At last I’m discovering what going mad truly feels like,” Simon moaned.

**Author's Note:**

> Fusion with "The Importance of Being Earnest"


End file.
